Arkansas Blog

Sad day for law enforcement...now these little darlings will steal more bikes and cell phones and get away with it. Tent jails and razor wire is needed now more than ever.

Does seem kinda strange in this era of torture and secret prisons to see Wal-Mart lighten up on punishment for shoplifters. I can't recall any leftist liberal, like myself, bemoaning the fate of shoplifters.

How about shooting shoplifters on sight, collect the bounty and give it to their employees by way of bigger paychecks and some healthcare coverage? Do shoplifters typically vote Republican or something?

This is pretty cool. It's like getting a free $25 gift card from WallyWorld.

Tents and razor wire, what a great idea. We could build them along the Mexican border and kill three birds with one stone; Fence the border, lock up shoplifters in high heat, if they escape they are in Mexico. Brilliant!

well. Walmart and everyone else are stealing from the citizens who shop. Even the government like state, county and city are stealing from the citizens by collecting taxes that never go for the thing they were meant to go to!
If a man steals your coat give him your cloake also!

That does it. The terrorists have won.

Finally. Someting POSTIVE about wal-mart and you all still have to be snarky

It's having to use the word FINALLY every time Wal-Mart does something good that keeps us on edge. It's sorta like getting a pass to skip one 10 commandment every time Wal-Mart lightens up on anything.

Though I still have to wonder why anyone would lighten up on shoplifters......oh, unless they were stealing food for their starving children of course. Lift No Child's Behind....or however that goes.

Having worked in loss prevention in other specialty retail environments (electronics, clothing, etc.), I found from talking with Wal-Mart Loss Prevention associates that they had more authority than just about anyone else to prevent and deter theft. In all my situations, there was very little I could do to a shoplifter after they exited the store, and my only real tools to keep them from stealing anything were my powers of persusaion -- I pretty much had to catch the thief red-handed and make them feel guilty or (s)he could walk out scott-free.

I imagine Wal-Mart's bottom line prices will go up in certain departments now that they can't as effectively deter theft.

I always thought it was interesting how easy it really is to steal from stores like the Gap, BestBuy or others. If you just take what you want and walk out, they can't do much to stop you.

Not that I'm advocating such behavior.

The Jonesboro Sun reported today that 50 to 75 teens entered Champs Sporting Goods and looted the place. The store was in disarray and had to be closed.

If you get caught lifting a $15 Q-Beam do you still get to keep it? A Q-Beam is what I lifted once, when I was 15. And a can of "Sudden Tan." And, another time, a really cool denim ballcap from a store in Indian Mall called "The Hoosegow."

No one should be permitted to steal someone else's property and not be held accountable; it does not mattter whether it's a teen, adulit, or a government official. This is just another area where our society has dropped the ball.

Wal-Mart's "theft protection" is a joke--ask anyone who works in the Chenal store. Grab a blue vest and walk out of the store with the buzzer going off and no one will stop you. I heard that employees lost bonus money last year because the store had such a high rate of theft.

DBI thinks this is an area where Wal-Mart is "finally doing good"?

This isn't good. It isn't bad, either. But seriously, when my fellow liberals start praising companies when they start making theft easier . . . Sheesh. What core principles drive some of us?

DBI thinks this is an area where Wal-Mart is "finally doing good"?

This isn't good. It isn't bad, either. But seriously, when my fellow liberals start praising companies when they start making theft easier . . . Sheesh. What core principles drive some of us?

I don't get to say this very often, but the NY Times is wrong.
Wal-Mart dropped its no tolerance shoplifting policy some time back. I don't know when exactly, but it was in response to a lawsuit.
It was a Texas case, the in-store security chased a guy down and held him down by the throat. Cut off oxygen and caused damage. Wal-Mart got sued as a result and, in additon, to paying out some serious cash, dropped the policy.
The legal scholars might be able to find the case, it was a couple of years ago.

I hate to hear about the Tyson layoffs. Not good for our friends in the Northwest. Did Johnny Tyson just run the company into the ground? Seems like it got into bad shape in a hurry.

Re: Wal-Mart's new free ride for shoplifetrs policy: I wonder if The Liquor Store in Brinkley has a similar philosophy?

Between this decision to permit theft and the bowing to this silly global warming fad I think that Wa-Mart has seen its better days as a retail giant. They have been under a lot of scrutiny by various groups who did not like their profitability success.

I personally don't trade with Wal-Mart and don't like their attitude towards unions or how they treat their employees. However, I do not think that this will bode well for them in the long run.

Cheering the decision to let people steal (costs are passed on to the customer) is not surprising from left wingers.

This is what happens when you teach evolution in the schools. People start using math and paying attention to human rights and the whole society is lost. Before this there was no theft. People were caught and spent years on a chain gang and learned their lesson. Unless of course they were upper middle class and then they got probation.

Yes, obeying the law is definately a 50s concept. I guess we should jettison it.

This is good news for a certain GOP state legislator's wife.

Who? Who? Who?

Do tell!!

Who? Who? Who?

Do tell!!!

Nobody is defending breaking the law. I thought Repubs understood business and liablility. It turns out the only thing more important than money is controlling everyone else's behaviour. It's just too scary and maddening to live in world of complexity and dispare where there are actually people poor enough to not care about the law or the consqences and no matter how much you want to live silent dignity doing two part time jobs they just won't get it. Tent jails and razor wire. Get these folks off the streets. Oh yeah, the jails are full of mean people.

Yea, the people shoplifting are poor consequently their actions are justified. BALONEY. Poverty doesn't justify breaking the law. However, many of these shoplifters are doing it for kicks, greed or they are professional crooks. They are not poor.

Pretty ballsy move by Wal-mart. I guess they can handle the loss more so than say, Target...

Anon at 4:05, is wealth a justification for breaking the law? Just wondering...

Don't believe I said I was in favor of shoplifting. I'm not sure I understand exactly what Wal-Mart is doing or why they are doing it. I'm not for their move or against it. It's just amazing when Wal-Mart shifts in any direction.

The wife and I dance naked across the river now and then just to keep some excitement in our lives. But we don't shoplift and we've got 2 kids who don't shoplift.

We've always let them know that there was nothing cool about shoplifting, there was nothing fun about getting caught and there was nothing fun about your crazy-mad parents coming to visit you in jail.

It is very very cool to sue the Vice President and Karl Rove though. Those 2 have been the number 1 shoplifters in the world for the last 5 years. I would like to see them behind bars with giant homosexual cellmates permanently attached to their hind quarters. Oh how it makes me giggle!

DBI..you say you have two kids. I'm sure you love them. Then tell me how you could stand the IRS taking half of everything you would leave them if you were dead? The death tax is wrong. Are you still for it?. Will you tell your family what you really believe?.

Deathbyinches---don't wish too hard for someone else to be behind bars or that just may happen to you. If they would have something to worry about what about you? I've got a feeling you would be screaming for mommy within five minues.

Anon at 4:05, is wealth a justification for breaking the law? Just wondering...

What do you think is justification for breaking the law?

Laws should apply to each of us, with no exception. Those of us who are part of the working class poor; those of us who are middle class; those of us who are part of the super-wealthy; those of us who are disenfranchised should all be held to the same standard under the law.

Wal-Mart's decision may have had something to do with a case a while back in which a poor man in Texas tried to steal diapers for his baby. Security caught him in the parking lot and held him down, face to the hot asphalt, while they waited for the cops to get there. He died. A tip for Wal-Mart, and some of the rest of you Law 'n Order types: You are not allowed to use more force in the obstruction of a crime than what is necessary - usually that is equal to the amount of force being used in the commission of the crime. 'Nother words, if somebody is trespassing on your property, you can't just shoot them. Unless, of course, you live in Texas or Florida.

For my 2 new buddies, late at night when I'm bored, I look at porn on the Internet..woo woo. Last week I did 50 in a 40 for about 48 seconds....woo woo. I break no laws, so why would I be in prison? Just because I hate George Bush?

And I'd have to win the lottery to worry about the Estate Tax, but as I've said before and been thumped for several times, I'm the rare non-Republican who is against the Estate Tax. Are we all clear now?

I am totally against stealing in any shape or form. It has always bothered me, however, to read the local newspaper and see all the reports of cops being called out to arrest someone for stealing something that retails for five or ten dollars. I worked in security several years ago and we hardly ever prosecuted anyone except the big time thieves. Usually the humiliation of getting caught and banned out of the store was enough.

Off topic, but we better stop sweating the small stuff and focus our attention toward what's going between Lebanon and Israel.

"DBI..you say you have two kids. I'm sure you love them. Then tell me how you could stand the IRS taking half of everything you would leave them if you were dead? The death tax is wrong."

You dumbass. Do you know how much DBI would have to be worth for the estate tax to kick in? If the estate tax is repealed, YOU will have to make up for it, dumbass.

A friend of mine has worked at Sams club for about 20 years. According to him Wal-Mart/Sams has a much worse problem with employee theft than shoplifting. Maybe they are going to focus on the bigger problem.

i once shoplifted

from the old Moses store

I put a 45 on their listening devices(Immigrant song, by Led Zeppelin) liked it, and put it in my Gazette carrier bag

I was promptly apprehended by my shop teacher, Mr. Howie, who moonlighted as a security guard

After my paddling and interrogation by him, I was allowed one phone call. Not knowing any lawyers, I called my parents, who beat and interrogated me some more, and allowed the police to take me to the juvenile facility on Roosevelt Rd.

Three days later, I knew how to roll a joint out of toilet paper, pick a combination lock by listening to the clicks, and kill a person by striking them sharply under the nose

After my release, I never shop-lifted again. But I did smoke pot, pick locks, and affected a dangerous nose-swatting swagger that protected my lunch money for the rest of my incarceration at Horace Mann

In contusion, I don't condone nor endorse any shoplifting. Did not do much for me, but I still can pick a combination lock by listening to the clicks.

this all happened before Wal-Mart was invented

Sincerely,

My father

"Tent jails and razor wire is needed now more than ever."

They is?

Fact is, people steal. It might start with a paper clip or a sugar packet or a postage stamp, and maybe never go farther than that. Sometimes it does. Look in your own pocket.

I hardly think the stores will tolerate blatant stealing of candybars or diapers. They have just been given new "rules of engagement" which will allow discretion in individual cases. Sorta like the old mom-and-pop stores.

I never stole, by the way. I preferred the "Please may I have it? I ain't got no money" approach. I must have scored at least two or three packs of gum that way. Humiliating, maybe, but it beat theft, and didn't cost the proprietors more than a little compassion. My kid-breath must have been worse than i thought.

The big Mart has just made a business wise decision. They've chosen to concentrate on REAL theft--by employees, managers and execs whose theft actually eats into their corporate pocketbook.

Hehe, I can't help thinking of how many associates clock in each day and do as little as possible before clocking out. That is stealing, as far as I'm concerned.

Hey, this will make a teacher's job easier! They could send 28 kids out to steal supplies @$25 per kid and the classroom would be stocked without the teacher spending a dime. Hey, maybe the kids would show up to get their homework assignments and maybe the parents would help.Then, when they are "legal" we will be adding more and more jails to provide FREE room and board, TV, video games, clean sheets, basketball courts, and a library that would make educated adults drool with all the legal ways to get out of jail or at least harrass the legal system or sue to add more benefits. GO WMT!

Hey, this will make a teacher's job easier! They could send 28 kids out to steal supplies @$25 per kid and the classroom would be stocked without the teacher spending a dime. Hey, maybe the kids would show up to get their homework assignments and maybe the parents would help.Then, when they are "legal" we will be adding more and more jails to provide FREE room and board, TV, video games, clean sheets, basketball courts, and a library that would make educated adults drool with all the legal ways to get out of jail or at least harrass the legal system or sue to add more benefits. GO WMT!

Not even funny, A2, let alone profound.

You sound like someone who has been burned by some system or other, imagined or otherwise. Care to bare your soul?

WIDJ..You are a common theiving savage with morals no better than the little darlin' that steals $24.99 at WalMart.

Ah, I finally made one of him (sic) mad. Very profound indeed, "Anonymous". Do I get fries with that?

Anonymous 11:25 = owned

widj,
Wasn't trying to be profound or entertaining. Sarcastic? Yup, I'll give you that one. What are the long-term ramifications of this decision by the largest retailer in America.

"Hey, this will make a teacher's job easier! They could send 28 kids out to steal supplies @$25 per kid and the classroom would be stocked without the teacher spending a dime."

Not a good idea. Not a good idea at all. What about those kids who can't count or add?
And consider clothing appropriate for shoplifting. Has anyone taken a gander at what girls are wearing now? I nearly ran into a parked car when I saw a girl bent over the seat of her car yesterday. She had to be showing ten inches of flesh from there to THERE. (Used to be, you only saw those sights on plumbers or mechanics.)
The boys would have to do the shoplifting. At least they could hide the goods. Their problem would be holding their pants up during the commission of the crime.
But somebody would screw up, end up in the pokey and spill the beans. Teacher will be arrested as a Fagin.

But the more I think about it -- is a gas drive-off shoplifting? Let's see, a blonde wig, dark glasses, a little mud on the old license plate . . . Would $24.95 worth of gas get me to the next Wal-Mart gas pump?

The Wal~Mart LP incident happened in the Houston area in the summer of '05 - a Cleveland TX resident was apprehended with diapers AND sporting goods department items on his person in the parking lot after he had failed to follow instructions from LP and mgmt. to halt.

If you can't do the time. don't do the crime.

Ho,
Can you provide more information regarding this incident? Date, time, case number, police report, etc.?
Thanks.

Its not about doing the right thing (paying a living wage, providing benifits, not screwing suppliers, prosecuting criminals) its all about the $$$. Wally World would suck the devil's dong if it would increase their profits by 2%

where I live, wallyworld calls the police when they catch a shoplifter. i dont know how they detain them till the police arrive, probably read aloud from the current sale circular or make them sing the walmart song or something. I wonder if they'll stop doing that now that the main holy sainted temple of W*M has decided to go easy on crime?